Jay LaPrete, Associated PressGov. John Kasich talks to reporters Tuesday night at the Statehouse about the defeat of Issue 2.

COLUMBUS, Ohio - To say that Ohio Gov. John Kasich suffered a setback this week with the resounding defeat of Issue 2 might be an understatement, given the potential side implications for the first-year chief executive.

Kasich is a brand unto himself, with a penchant for winning people over with his persistence and confident understanding of the inner workings of government, learned from his years as a congressman. And if that doesn't impress you, Kasich bets his Rolodex of friends across the country willing to vouch for his capabilities will.

But the overwhelming vote to repeal the collective bargaining law that was championed by the Republican governor, coupled with his dismal job approval ratings, have left brand Kasich in tatters. It leaves to question how Kasich, whose political aspirations extend beyond Ohio, will be able to continue pushing through his agenda.

"This will take him off the national radar for a bit, and that is probably good for him," said Bradley Smith, a Capital University law professor and former chairman of the Federal Election Commission. "It is remarkable for a guy that has been in office for just 10 months that people would be so dissatisfied, and now his signature piece of legislation has failed.

"Obviously the defeat of Issue 2 and the margin of defeat won't help him," Smith continued. "But in politics we have this term -- 'turning lemons into lemonade' -- and I think that is what he will try to do. I think by removing him from the national stage for a little bit, that will be helpful."

Some of the governor's closest friends say it would be a mistake for anyone to count Kasich out.

"This is a bump in the road because of the message that it sends to people looking to do business in Ohio and people looking to keep doing business in Ohio and the position they see John in," said former Ohio Republican congressman David Hobson, who served in Congress and on the same budget committee with Kasich.

Kasich's attack plan to this point has largely involved working directly with a compliant, GOP-controlled state legislature to help grease the skids for his agenda. But Hobson, who counts Kasich as a close friend, said the governor needs to take seriously his low approval numbers and start taking his message directly to Ohioans.

A Quinnipiac University poll released on Nov. 10 placed the governor's approval rating at 36 percent. Other polls have shown similar results, making Kasich among the most unpopular governors in the country. Hobson is betting the governor will rise to the occasion.

"This is what John is very good at. He is going to have to convince people to do the right thing, and it won't be easy," Hobson said. "John is a very good marketer for things that he believes in. He is one of the best I've ever seen. And he's going to have to take his message beyond the legislature and to the public.

"He's not going to let any of this deter him from what he wants to do," Hobson said.

Kasich, a former Fox News show host and political pundit, has been a regular on several of the cable channel's highly rated news programs. His kinetic persona has also landed him invitations on the Sunday morning television news circuit, and he's been featured in national newspapers and magazines.

Among his close political friends are Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour and New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie. He urged Barbour earlier this year to run for president. And recently, with Barbour out of the race, he encouraged Christie to seek the GOP presidential nomination. Many believe it is Kasich who really wants to end up in the White House.

"I think we can probably remove him as a vice president nominee for 2012," Smith said.

But Kasich can find solace in the fact that he is not up for re-election until 2014, plenty of time for the governor to rebound.

"And at that point the question will be, 'do his policies have bite? Did his agenda work?'" Smith said.

But how Kasich moves forward right now is anyone's guess. On Tuesday, after conceding the huge 22-point defeat of Issue 2, the governor was unusually humble and uncharacteristically without answers.

"It requires me to take a deep breath and to spend some time reflecting on what happened here. . . If you don't win and people speak in a loud voice, then you pay attention to what they have to say and think about it," he said.

"So, people ask what will you do. . . I can tell you now is a chance for me to catch my breath and try to gather my thoughts together as to what we do next," the governor said.

Apparently, Kasich is still deep in thought. The governor did not make himself available to the media for questions Thursday at an event in Columbus and declined a request for an interview from The Plain Dealer.

One thing he has to be concerned about is keeping his Republican support in the legislature. Many GOP lawmakers who helped Kasich move key pieces of legislation this year will be up for re-election in 2012 and must weigh the risk of continuing to hitch their political fortunes to an unpopular governor.

Veteran Republican lawmaker Lynn Wachtmann told The Plain Dealer on Tuesday that lawmakers are right to be leery but aren't likely to compromise their conservative beliefs.

"I'm sure it's going to temper us a little bit, but by and large our members are fully supportive of less government, lower taxes and giving more authority to the people," said Wachtmann, a state representative from Napoleon.

Ohio Democratic Party Chairman Chris Redfern considered the repealed collective bargaining law, known as Senate Bill 5, an attack on Ohio's working middle class that voters will remember during next year's general election.

"Next year and beyond, all Republican candidates -- whether they are running for the Statehouse or the White House -- will have to answer the basic question of whether or not they stood up for Ohio's middle class over the last year," Redfern said.

"Our Republican friends in the Statehouse who voted for Senate Bill 5 will have to answer for those votes," he said.

Kasich, who ushered Senate Bill 5 through the legislature -- lobbying state senators to support the partisan measure -- characterized the law as a way of helping local governments contain their costs. Opponents, however, said it was tantamount to union busting and would have negatively affected Ohio's first responders and other unionized workers.

Ohio House Speaker William G. Batchelder, one of the governor's staunchest supporters in the legislature, said pieces of the law will be brought back early next year as independent bills. But he hopes to have more union support in writing the bills.

Batchelder said he has no indication that Republicans are pulling back on their support of the governor or his goal of reforming Ohio's nearly three-decade-old collective bargaining rules.

"No, that's not happening in our caucus," the speaker said.

He recalled how Republican former Gov. James A. Rhodes was similarly rejected by voters just a year after he was elected, when he proposed the Ohio Bond Commission.

"He just got his head beaten in," Batchelder said. "Of course, in '66 he had been re-elected by the largest margin a governor had ever had.

"So we have a lot to do. We have an obligation to the people to turn the page and go on," he said.

Hobson said one way or another before he leaves office, the governor will see to it that Ohio's collective bargaining rules are reformed.

"John will learn from this, he will grow from this and he will figure out a . . . better way to get this done," Hobson said. "He will not let this drive him to anger. He will drive it to a positive."

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